This book is a collection of short stories by Stephen King, four to be exact. Each one begins with a introduction from King that basically tells what sparked the idea or if it connects to other stories.

The Langoliers
This is the first story of the collection. The plot is fairly simple; eleven people fall asleep on a flight from L.A. to Boston. And when they wake up, they find themselves in a strange and void world. The characters range from a young blind girl named Dinah, to a psycho named Craig Toomey. Now, they have to figure out what’s going on before something really bad happens...

I’m going to be honest with everyone. I am very aware that people call this story one of King’s best. It was made into a movie. A lot of people love it. But me? I seriously hated it. Hated it with a fiery passion. I hated this story with a hatred that rivals Prime’s hate of Cabin Fever. Why? To put it bluntly, I did not like the characters enough to really care. It was a little too “out there” for my taste, too close to sci-fi instead of horror. I like some aspects of it, such as the setting, but I found myself just wishing it would end already.

4 out of 10 Matches refusing to light

Secret Window, Secret Garden
Next, we have the story the movie, Secret Window, was based on. It is the story of Mort Rainey, a writer who had just gotten a divorce and was living at his summer home. All is as well as it could be when a man named John Shooter knocks on his door and accuses him of stealing his story. He denies the charges and sets out to prove Shooter wrong. But he starts to question the world around him when things began happening to him and his evidence.

I liked this story. I didn’t love it, but it was enjoyable. I saw the movie before I read this book, so I liked pointing out the differences between the two. Inevitably, I liked the movie a little more than this. But I liked Mort a lot, loved seeing the interactions between he and Shooter, and my favorite scene has got to be the one near the end.

6 out of 10 Cobs of corn

The Library Policeman
Sam Peebles needed to borrow some library books and is helped by a woman with a smiling face but cold and icy eyes. Before he leaves, she warns him to turn them in on time or the library policeman will get him. He dismisses this as nothing but a story to scare children. That is, until he loses them and is visited by this boogeyman.

When I read the title, I seriously doubted that I would like this story at all. It seemed a ridiculous idea, so I prepared myself to hate it. But what could have been a flop quickly turned into a story I couldn’t bring myself to put down. It was well paced with a plot that reminded me of “It.” It surprised me a few times as I tried to guess what happened next, so I just gave up. I was extremely pleased at the end. It was a haunting tale that will make you think twice about not returning your library books.

Oh, we also see another example of King’s love of victimizing children.

8 out of 10 Pieces of Red licorice

The Sun Dog
Kevin Delevan just got the one thing he wanted for his birthday: A Sun 660 Polaroid camera that develops automatically. A pretty cool gift...Until he and his family learn that it takes the same picture over and over again: A picture of a mongrel with its back to the camera, facing a white picket fence. A seemingly harmless camera then turns into a bridge into the supernatural..

I’ve always avoided most anything having to do with haunted cameras ever since Fatal Frame. Not that it wasn’t a good game, but haunted cameras freak me out a little. Plus, this story had something to do with the city of Castle Rock, which is the setting for the book, “Needful Things.” It was because of these things I was a little hesitant in starting it. It was a pretty good story, but it seemed almost...too detailed in some parts. It dragged on at times. But it was alright.

7 out of 10 mongrels

All in all, this was a pretty good book. I finished it in 3 days, so it was a pretty quick read.

I give the entire book a 7.5 out of 10 Boston Red Sox games